RANKIN MAKING EMOTIONAL RETURN TO GOLF’S TV BOOTH

PITTSFORD, NY - JUNE 26: watches a tee shot on the ninth hole during the third round of the LPGA Championship presented by Wegman&apos;s 2010 at the Locust Hill Country Club on June 26, 2010 in Pittsford, New York. (Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images)

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PITTSFORD, NY - JUNE 26: watches a tee shot on the ninth hole during the third round of the LPGA Championship presented by Wegman's 2010 at the Locust Hill Country Club on June 26, 2010 in Pittsford, New York. (Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images)

CARLSBAD 
Judy Rankin feels like a golfer heading out to play in a major without any practice swings.

For eight months, the Hall of Fame player and longtime on-course commentator and analyst has been away from the broadcasting business, with far more serious matters to track than yardage, club selection and which way the wind is blowing.

Her husband of 45 years, Walter “Yippy” Rankin, the man who was her biggest cheerleader in two notable careers, was suffering a slow and wrenching decline with throat cancer, and Judy wanted to be there with him for every awful step. He had been her supporter when she fought breast cancer in 2006.

Yippy Rankin died four weeks ago, and though Judy Rankin would like more time to adjust and grieve, the LPGA Tournament that means so much to her, the Kraft Nabisco Championship, is next week, and she badly wants to be there. She didn’t want to commentate cold on the season’s first major.

So, with some trepidation, Rankin is diving back in to the LPGA on Golf Channel’s live weekend telecasts of the Kia Classic at the La Costa Resort and Spa, where she also has a long history that dates back to the mixed team play in the mid-’60s.

Rankin’s friends have been pumping her up, reminding her that someone of her skill and experience should have no problem coming back.

Rankin’s response: That’s easy for them to say.

In her soothing, warm and familiar voice, Rankin said on the phone earlier this week from her home in Midland, Texas, “I’m nervous. I feel like I’ve been out of touch. I haven’t watched any golf. I haven’t concentrated on it. I hope I’m ready. I’m not positive that I am.

“I have a certain responsibility to show up and know what I’m talking about. I want to be able to do it well. I think when I get away from my house it will be easier to get my head around the golf. Standing on the range is a healthy thing in my situation right now. Everything makes me sad.”

For the first time in her adult life, Rankin said, she is alone. She’s spent thousands of nights by herself in hotel rooms, but Yippy was always there waiting on the other end of the phone line to offer encouragement or critiques, whichever he thought she needed most.

“He was so proud of her,” Juli Inkster, the Hall of Famer who was close to the Rankins, said. “Yippy was a great guy. He was all bark on the outside, but a teddy bear on the inside. He just loved Judy to death.”

She was Judy Torluemke until they married when Judy was 20 and already playing professional golf. Judy Rankin would become one of the great players of her generation, with 26 LPGA wins — all but one of them coming in the 1970s.

Yippy — whose nickname was given to him by his grandfather and had nothing to do with putting foibles — either followed Judy at events or stayed home with their son, Tuey, while managing his own insurance business. One friend from those playing days laughingly recalled Yippy smoking cigarettes and kicking over trash cans, and Judy having to banish him from the course at times.

“I think as far as being competitively tough, Yippy had a huge role in making me into that,” Rankin said. “He had a football mentality, and it made me tougher on the golf course.”

Off the course, the Rankins were a popular couple who people enjoyed being around. Sal Johnson, a golf journalist and longtime friend, called them “an All-American couple that put Ozzie and Harriet to shame.”

In her typically eloquent, no-nonsense manner, Rankin said of the relationship: “You’re young; you’re loving; you’re angry; you struggle; it’s good and it’s bad. And when you both have the desire to persevere and find a way to make it work, eventually there’s a bond between you that can’t be broken.”

When her playing days were over, Judy Rankin moved to broadcasting at ABC in the early 1980s. She was the lone female voice in PGA Tour coverage for a long time. She’s probably most associated with broadcasts of the British Open, where her personal highlights include covering Tiger Woods’ win at St. Andrews in 2000 and Jack Nicklaus’ last round there in 2005.

“I’ve never respected anybody away from the business more than Judy,” said Jack Graham, Golf Channel’s vice president of golf events who has worked with Rankin for 30 years. “She has this quality about her … what you see is what you get. She has the ability to be critical of the golf play without being critical of the golfer. At the end of the day, players respect her for that.”

Inkster got to know Rankin not as a player, but a broadcaster, though she also played for her when Rankin captained the U.S. Solheim Cup teams in 1996 and ’98.

“Even under the most stressful situation, she’s still Judy,” Inkster said. “She may have a lot of stress inside, but you never see it.”

That is very likely to be the case this weekend, even as Rankin sweats out her return. Viewers hearing her voice again is the greatest reason to celebrate.